'These are Iraqi children. Now they are all gone'

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A mother sits near her injured child at Yarmouk Hospital after three suicide bombers struck in the Amal neighbourhood of Baghdad.Photo: AP

Car bombs attract the curiosity of Iraqi children, but this time with fatal consequences as Edmund Sanders reports in Baghdad.

For many Iraqi children, a car bombing or mortar strike isn't a tragedy, it's the biggest excitement of the week.

They are drawn by billowing smoke, police sirens and the certainty that journalists will soon arrive to interview witnesses. The children flood to the scene, pick through debris, wave to television cameras and interact with the US troops who show up to clear the wreckage.

So it was on Thursday when scores of children rushed to the site of a suicide car bombing in the working-class Amal district of Baghdad. They marvelled at the crater, practised their English on troops and rode bicycles around the American tanks.

"The Americans were giving out chocolates," said one 15-year-old boy injured by shrapnel 300 metres from the blast site. "Everyone closer than me to the explosion was killed."

For most of the children, it was their penultimate day of holiday before schools open next week. Hassan Abdul Hussein, 12, described how soldiers agreed to move a tank so they could play football. One soldier showed pictures of his girlfriend to boys.

"The Americans were playing with us. There was a huge crowd of children," he said.

Then a second suicide bomber barrelled down the street towards the US and Iraqi forces - and the children who surrounded them. And then a third. The children were no longer observers of the attack, but its victims.

Health officials said 34 of the 41 fatalities were children.

The disaster sent panic through the neighbourhood. Nearby Yarmouk Hospital was soon overrun with parents roaming the hallways and makeshift emergency rooms, hoping to find their children.

At the morgue, stunned mothers and fathers left with only body parts to bury.

Abu Yassin, the father of Hassan Abdul Hussein, said his son had been running to play with the Americans. He rushed from his house after the blasts to try to find him.

"I saw many bodies lying on the ground, most of them children," said Abu Yassin. "I started carrying one body which I thought was my son. Then I saw by his clothes that it wasn't. I laid the dead child to rest with two other bodies.

"I was crying and shaking. These are Iraqi children. Now they are all gone."

The day had begun with optimism. A US-funded sewage plant was about to open. In most places, such an event would pass without notice. In Baghdad, where raw waste still flows through some neighbourhoods, it was a time to celebrate.

The ceremony ended at 1pm and families were making their way home when the first bomb rocked the area, officials said.

US military and Iraqi security forces quickly arrived and established a perimeter more than 100 metres from the site. Two US tanks attempted to seal off the area.

But children frequently sneak past police lines. Young boys know the back alleys and backyards and appear less threatening to police and troops.

The second explosion came 10 to 15 minutes after the first, witnesses said. A few minutes later, a third car tried to drive over a street median strip. Police opened fire and stopped it, but then it also exploded.

"They are killing scores of innocent Iraqis in order to kill one or two Americans. What sort of jihad is this?" asked Salih, the 67-year-old grandfather. "What sort of religion allows such bad people to commit such hideous, horrible crimes?"